


If we could talk to time (my youth is yours)

by baekkieony



Series: Different Directions Of Love [18]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Dancer Kim Jongin | Kai, Death, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy, Heavy Angst, How Do I Tag, I hope it's understandable, I'm Sorry, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Smut, Inspired by Fanfiction, Inspired by Music, M/M, No Smut, Sad Ending, Slow Burn, Sorry Not Sorry, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, What Was I Thinking?, and also not, angsty, cruel Kim Jongin, dying, heavily inspired by anterograde tomorrow, hella angsty, help me, i dare you all to check it out on wattpad, it wanted to try something new and i completely failed lol, jongin is kind of dick here, sad end, sehun has amnesia, sekai - Freeform, tf should that mean author-nim, this is literal shit, time breathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:47:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12776211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baekkieony/pseuds/baekkieony
Summary: Sehun's world has stopped where Jongin's is running away from him and when time is turning through the thick smoke, it's painted with blood.





	If we could talk to time (my youth is yours)

**Author's Note:**

> okay guys, this is something i really worked a lot on. i think i spent about three days writing it (whitout really doing break, so three days straight up writing). it just flooded out of my mind and fingers. i hope you gonna enjoy it all, because it helped me to release some of my depressions and i don't have to cry so much like i cried before i wrote this. please tell me how you found it, because it really interest me what you think about my writing style (i tried something different here). feel free to yell at me; i love attention

The sea of red post-it's on his bed, walls and floor are the first thing he notices when he wakes up with crusty and itching eyes, half undressed and completely lost.

The room he's in is painted white, like snow on a sunny winter day and it's freezing, because the window is open wide, but he's only in boxer and a t-shirt. A post-it is falling down on his nose, and they're on his belongings everywhere, on his clothes too and before he notices he's reading the post-it without even wanting to.

_Your Name is Oh Sehun. This is written by Kim Jongin, your neighbour. You have amnesia. You won't remember me writing this or even me at all. Just knock on the door in front of yours. 8/19/2011._

Sehun can't but shake his head, because he doesn't know a Kim Jongin or even an Oh Sehun at all, but Sehun has stopped knowing the world six years ago, but this is also one of the facts Oh Sehun has forgot.

When he stands up in the sea of post-it's, it feels like an old known moment he has experienced every day of his life, a flash of memories he doesn't have, but it last only a second before it's running from him again and Sehun would like to run after it too, but he's to slow, because time is holding him back in a circle of todays without the chance of tomorrows.

He cannot explain why he's searching and he also can, but he's drowning in the sea of time and words, like a rock, not moving, but also not, because he's drowning in himself, time chasing him like Sehun wants to chase time.

Sehun is not only running towards this door the mysterious _Kim Jongin_ has told him about, he's also running through time in an endless speed of light, curling with the time and when he finally reaches it, the door he's been waiting for, it's gone and so is Sehun, because Sehun comes and goes with time.

He's knocking on a wooden door, like he's knocking on the door of time, hoping for it to open one last time for him so he can jump in back to the normal world he's been living in before, but the door keeps being closed, because time doesn't like him as much as Sehun likes the time.

Instead of the door of time, the mysterious door from Kim Jongin is opening and he smiles, this stranger smiles when Sehun stands in front of him and again, it feels like a long known smile, but the memory has faded just as much as the smile from this stranger has seem to fade, because it's too sad, too _hurt_ , to _disillusioned_ when he realizes that Sehun doesn't recognizes him like the stranger does.

The stranger lets him in without further questions, without even asking him for his name and it seems like Sehun is the only one who's lost in the hours, because it looks like this stranger is running for the hours Sehun has tons of. Always in hurry while he howls like a thunderstorm through his apartment, making a coffee for the both of them, an unopened packet of cigarettes lying next to the strangers cup.

When the stranger returns with the coffee and is pouring it into both cups, Sehun has time to muster him, time he has tons of and it's sad, because this boy is particularly handsome and Sehun knows that he won't remember a single scar from this beautiful face tomorrow.

"I think you want to know who I am", the stranger's hand is slowly creeping to his cigarettes and Sehun would like to slap it out of his hand, because he knows that smoking is stupid even if he may does not remember the reason why this stranger has even started or why he knows his name and why he's sitting in his apartment and it feels like home, because he may have been doing this for years.

"Yes", it's a silly answer that doesn't make sense, but Sehun can do silly answers, because he's not going to remember a single one of them tomorrow; if Sehun's tomorrows can even be considered as tomorrows, because it seems more like todays to him. This silly answer may sounded specially familiar, but Sehun ignores it, because how could it sound familiar if Sehun can't define familiar, because Sehun doesn't have _yesterdays_ or _memories_.

"You answered like this for the last two years", the stranger looks harsh and bitter, but there's the undertone of making fun of a silly little puppy, mockingly and Sehun decides to ignore it. He won't remember this stranger being rude or this stranger at all tomorrow.

"Well, since you aren't in the mood for asking questions, I'm going to explain it myself", the stranger finally lits the cigarette and smoke is curling out of his mouth, fading into ash grey clouds, like time is fading for Sehun. "Your name is Oh Sehun. You're twenty six, but it feels like you are still twenty, because time has stopped running for you when you had a car accident six years ago. You have amnesia. I'm your neighbour Kim Jongin, a dancer with my whole soul and body", Sehun has stopped listening after his name, because this whole text seems studied and practised and oddly familiar. He only notices how Jongin's smile seems to lit up when he talks about dancing and Sehun would like to remember that smile tomorrow, but the problem is that he doesn't have a tomorrow.

"I'm your hyung and we met four years ago. I needed a little until I understood what you have and why you won't remember my name tomorrow, but that's okay, because I'm not going to last as long as I'd like to anyway", the last sentence has Sehun's head perking up, because it implicated the opinion of having a tomorrow without this stranger Kim Jongin and somehow Sehun does not like the feeling of having a tomorrow which doesn't include Kim Jongin.

Jongin sees how Sehun's attention has got back and he laughs, because Sehun looks like a lost puppy with too thick eyebrows and Sehun starts laughing too, because it seems like they've known each other for forever, which is kind of true after all even if Sehun has to learn who Kim Jongin is with every single new day.

They laugh and laugh, smoke curling in the room and filling lungs and the ash tray with clouds and through the smoke the sadness hangs deep, because the reason why they're laughing is not funny at all.

When he leans back to take a moment, a moment to breathe Jongin does not allow himself, Jongin's skin is glistening in the raw morning sun light, bronze and golden together, slurring into one beautiful person. The ash tray is filling with the ash of a third cigarette and Sehun hopes that there won't come a fourth, because he won't know if he'd just slap it out of his hand or burn himself alive with it. And in this kitchen, sun rays playing on Jongin's skin, Sehun decides that Jongin looks like he's made out of plastic with caffeine rushing through his veins, rushing with his blood, ready to bleed out all time. Breakable; plastic, beautiful lie of being plastic without being transparent.

When Jongin puffs out the smoke for the last time, swirling over his coffee, he looks dead and a lot older than twenty-seven, bags coming out and fallen and sunken face clear in the sun, his skin now nearly red; not golden anymore like these golden days haven been running from him while Sehun's hours have stuck.

At the end of the day Sehun has learned that Jongin likes dogs a lot and dancing and chicken and Sehun knows a little more about himself, without thinking further about not knowing it tomorrow and maybe Sehun also knows that he likes Jongin a lot.

_______________________________________

Sehun wakes up to a sea of post-it's, red and deftly written over and he does not remember where nor who he is.

The sight of a familiar post-it, which can't be familiar and is not supposed to be familiar falls into the sight of his eyes and before Sehun even knows it by himself he's grabbing for it, fingertips away.

When he reads the too familiar words of who he is and who this post-it wrote it is making his chest ache with a pang he cannot explain without getting explained why there's a pang at all.

Maybe it's the amnesia that makes Sehun sad, or it's the rain outside which never stops falling for him, because life has been raining down on him everyday, but he still forgets every little drop he has caught.

When he wants to knock on the door, the door does not open and so doesn't the door of time, like it's a portal only closing for him without really being closed.

Sehun runs down the stairs, fleeing from time and its cage it been keeping Sehun in without having the door really closed. He flies, flies through time and memories, dried and dead, like dead yesterdays and lost tomorrows, because Sehun is stuck in his todays.

He sees the stranger on the stairs through the blur of todays that every single today has been the last six years for Sehun, a blur of time without really moving forward, coming to a still and after all moving on; but not for him, because he's stuck with lost hours, not able to recall a single thing without being singled out by time.

The stranger smiles at him, a cheeky one with sadness dripping out of his eyes and dyeing the floor red, because it may not be sadness but blood streaming down and Sehun smiles back to this stranger through the thick smoke of time and this smile makes it on the other side, because it's sincere and truly meant with love and Sehun recalls a moment of being told that he's not able to love, because he has not tomorrows or yesterdays to base his love on; but it's a feeling that has no time, no borders or stop signs and _love_ has never stopped running for Sehun, because it started running at the same pace as Sehun does.

It seems like Sehun has already seen this stranger on the steps; it may could be today or maybe he just knows his tomorrows, because he doesn't remembers his yesterdays as good as others do.

He wants to stop running, stop running for the bleeding stranger on stairs, but he can't because time is firstly running with him, for him and without him at once, world turning on its axis, dangerous and not controllable. The stranger keeps going, catching up on his own hours and he seems in a hurry, and Sehun remembers that stranger always seem in a hurry, but this particular one seems to hurry little more and Sehun would like to know why he does not want to experience the infinity of being stuck in time.

Sun is glistening down on his skin, brightening it up in golden and bronze, ethereal and beautiful without really being beautiful, because the strangers face is sunken and bags are deep, like his body is twenty and his face is forty-nine. The blood is sprinkling the white walls red and Sehun does not know if he recognizes this stranger anymore when golden skin turns red and grey smoke of time is painted bloody.

His skin looks like plastic and Sehun wonders what would happen if that plastic breaks and his veins spread open. Maybe the stranger would bleed blood. Maybe liquid plastic. Maybe dead memories and yesterdays Sehun doesn't remember.

Then the moment is over and everything is falling down, down with Sehun and the hours he does not recall; in an endless abyss Sehun won't be able to climb up again, because it's the abyss of lost memories and forgotten things.

_______________________________________

Time stops for Sehun – if it hasn't already – when Jongin, the dancer Kim Jongin, opens his door at some of Sehun's forgotten yesterdays, or todays.

It's like flying through time even though it's not, but Sehun feels safe when he's buried into the crook of Jongin's neck, the smell of familiar and not familiar cologne winding up into his nose. Jongin doesn't ask why he has a handful of Sehun in his arms or why the boy remembers his name or what he's doing to pay the apartment he's living in, even if he won't live there so much longer.

Jongin directs him into the kitchen, coffee and a packet of cigarettes already on the table, ready to die for Oh Sehun's thirsty mouth and for Kim Jongin's hungry lungs. Ash grey clouds are already filling the small room up, ash tray nearly full and clothes stinking after the undying scent of smoke. The first cigarette is quickly lit and then Jongin's ready to talk, lungs burning on it finest, and dying on it finest, like Jongin wants to die.

Sehun asks a lot today, unreadable why and mysterious, which was normally Jongin's job. The smoke is curling like time is curling for Sehun when he wants to stand up and bury himself into Jongin's neck forever but time is holding him back; because who wants to love someone stuck in time when the other is running out of hours where he shouldn't.

It takes time for Sehun to gather his strength, because this question could either destroy their relationship for today or back it up even more and so Sehun somehow finds it, full with confidence, but also quiet.

"Jongin, why do you smoke?", Jongin stops in his movements and Sehun ask if Jongin experiences how Sehun feels everyday, stopping without wanting to be stopped and then Jongin laughs fully and sad.

Jongin has to laugh heavily first, coughing out smoke and time, before he takes another drag of his cigarette and laughs again. "You can ask such question without thinking, because you know that you'll forget the answer tomorrow, don't you? That is why you're not able to love, because love includes memories and you don't have memories, Oh Sehun. You only have todays", the bitter undertone is making Sehun's heart ache and he sees how the time curls faster out of Jongin's mouth, all along with the smoke.

"Because I want to die faster. I think the most people smoke because they want to die faster", the answer may should have been shocking or hurt Sehun in any way, because he knows that Jongin likes to be cruel to him, because Jongin knows he's dying, dying with his lungs that are filling with snot Jongin cannot stop, before it finally stops him, heart not beating and lungs not filling; so yes, Sehun understands a lot why Jongin wants to die faster in favour of burning his lungs alive and filling it with ash grey time he's not supposed to have.

Sehun also understands why Jongin is jealous, jealous of all these hours Sehun has and he does not deserve, because he won't be able to recall even one of them tomorrow, and that's why his smile is so sad when Jongin ask why Sehun is not shocked and that he looks like he want to cry when he gets that Sehun has read his post-it's about his illness.

But Jongin was made to break, never to last even if he wants to, while Sehun is solid in hours he does not want to live, because everybody is moving on without him and even without him remembering his loved ones tomorrow there still will be a pain in his heart when he sees his pictures of them and realizes that they're not here anymore and his brain and time decided to make him forget about it. So he may not remember who he has lost, but he remembers losing someone and that hurts, because he experiences the feeling of freshly having lost someone every new day.

Jongin's smoke is painted red, like blood and strawberries and Sehun would like to keep Jongin living at least until July when the strawberries are growing again or until the next christmas, because christmas is only two months away and Sehun does not know if these two months of tomorrows and todays are enough to fill Jongin up with life again.

_______________________________________

The white walls of the hospital are reminding him of his white wall at home and his today is enough to recall the post-it's on it, Jongin on his bed and white sheets painted red and bloody.

It was early in the morning when Sehun woke up to the stranger in his bed, naked and bloody, because of the blood the stranger has been coughing and Sehun remembers the stranger pointing to the post-it for Sehun to read and Sehun also remember how he ignored that post-it and just stuffed it into his pocket, before calling the ambulance to take the stranger to wherever they needed him to take.

Time is running specific fast today, out of Sehun's sight like it's nervous when Sehun is, nervous that Sehun is going to catch up on it and that Sehun now knows how to open the door even if he doesn't. It's hard to breath when the ash grey smoke of time is filling his lungs like smoking was filling Jongin's and when one of Jongin's legs move, Sehun really stirs awake, full of energy and todays to fill and forget.

Jongin firstly just looks at him, like a lost puppy and Sehun recalls a feeling that he has used this look at Jongin by himself not so long ago, before forgetting it, because it's just not possible.

Jongin's eyes are full with the guilt and the hate, but they're also full with broken seconds and died minutes, dead days and lost weeks he all should have, but he doesn't, while Sehun yet has to experience the whole time of a year and years after that year.

"You're here". It's a statement, a fact, something undeniable, but Sehun's still able to deny it tomorrow, because he wouldn't even remember being here.

"Yes", the silly answers are back, back with the forgotten memories Jongin's trying to hide from himself, because with every memory he has about Sehun, the fact that _Sehun_ won't remember it comes along and hurts him a little bit more, lungs filling with the pieces of fallen seconds.

"What did you do on my bed naked, Jongin?", it was clear that Sehun would not be able to remember what they did, that they made love, without loving each other, or more without Sehun loving Jongin, because Jongin definitely does.

"We made love", the laugh is bitter and filled with blood and hurt Sehun want to but can't understand, "and you promised me that you love me today, and that you'll love me tomorrow".

Silence is eating them up and again, Sehun is fascinated by the plastic Jongin's made of.

"But we're friends, aren't we?", the chewing on his upper lips makes Sehun even more nervous than he is like this and he feels time rising from Jongin like bile from his stomach.

"Don't you understand that I don't want to be your friend, but can't stop, because at the end of the day I'll be the only one remembering it?", Jongin's angry voice is making Sehun's heart clench and he'd like to scream back, but the thoughts of lost tomorrows and todays and yesterdays is holding him back.

"You forget that you never asked me how I feel about myself not remembering anything. I don't like waking up not knowing why I kissed you yesterday and why I'm supposed to do it again tomorrow! I don't want to stay still while everyone else is running with the hours that have stopped for me. I may not know you tomorrow, Kim Jongin, but you also will move on, everybody will move on and nobody asked me if I want to stay still while the world is turning without me!".

Jongin's face is slurring in tears and the world stops turning on it's axis for a second, before it swirls and curls in dust and smoke and it's maybe Jongin's smoke the world is curling in, because the ash grey coming out of his mouth is painted with blood, even if he's bleeding time.

Sehun opens his mouth, a question streaming out with the time he's breathing; Jongin's time.

"Do you like me?"

"Like you? No", Jongin tries to reach out for Sehun's hand so desperately, but it's not enough, it's never and so he stops, like the world stops for Jongin every single second a little bit more. "I'd just like to be part of all your tomorrows I'm not going to have".

And Sehun thinks that Jongin looks so young and ethereal with the tears in his eyes and the sad smile showing his white teeth, even if the oxygen mask in his hand and his plastic skin tells otherwise.

The ash grey coming out of Jongin's mouth is overwhelming and outrageous, unhealthy thick, curling in the moonlight and Sehun understand that with every breath Jongin takes, he's going to be a little closer to Oh Sehun's version of the world; the ones where everything has stopped. And Jongin is breathing ash grey smoke, painted red and with time, because Jongin's breathing out time, with every cloud coming out of his mouth and Jongin's world is coming closer to the point where it stops turning for him, but not in the way Sehun's does, because time and not Sehun's heart has stopped running, but in Jongin's case it's time and his heart.

_______________________________________

Sehun wakes up to a white wall and a sea of post-it's he does not recall pining on his walls everywhere. His head feels thick and also does his heart; thick with sadness and lost tomorrows and forgotten yesterdays, skin looking plastic and worn out, like an old doll which has been forgotten and left behind.

Sehun kind of knows that the post-it's or his surroundings should feel or be familiar and when he's picking up one of the notes and reads it without even noticing, he knows that there's something wrong.

When he tries to reach the strangers door who named himself Kim Jongin it's too easy, too close. Time doesn't stop him and Sehun feels like it should stop him, because the familiar feeling of always having trouble to reach the time's door is printed in his head.

When he storms into the room, door crashing open, the only thing he finds is a lonely letter directed to him, but not the Kim Jongin he's supposed to find.

He decides that time has played enough on him for today and he takes the letter without reading it, before going back to his apartment, hoping for Kim Jongin to turn back.

It's at the next morning, after reading through the sea of post-it's, when he gets the phone call from the funeral company what colour he'd like to have for the roses.

Sehun may doesn't know why he's crying or why it seems like the world has ended because of stranger Kim Jongin's death, but the dull feeling of lost tomorrows tells him with a pang in his chest that he's supposed to.

_______________________________________

It's a feeling that brings him to a stranger's tombstone at 1 in the morning and this feeling is strong because it carries the silence of dead yesterdays and bleeding todays with it, and Sehun feels like he's supposed to cry for this stranger, because the note in his hand is telling him that he has loved him a lot when he was still alive.

It's definitely Kim Jongin's tombstone Sehun's standing in front of and no, he's not crying because of a dumb and stupid ache in his heart he can't explain and no, it doesn't hurt him not to know anything about Kim Jongin beside that he smoked.

Sehun remembers that Kim Jongin may have told him that Sehun is not able to love, because love is a feeling based on memories and Sehun isn't able to have memories and Sehun's todays are other people's yesterdays, but the uncomfortable sting which comes with thinking about Kim Jongin and lost tomorrows is making Sehun ache in pain and for the first time in his life he's craving for a cigarette, because Sehun knows that people who smoke want to die faster and Sehun wants to die faster to find out what this Kim Jongin may has to tell him about himself which Sehun doesn't know.

When he wakes up to the unopened letter beside him, he does not know what it even is. It's yellow, bright yellow and Sehun knows it reminds him of a blur of bronze and golden he's not supposed to remember.

He decides to shit on the unfamiliar-familiar post-it's surrounding him and reads the letter without even knowing why it's here in the first place.

_Oh Sehun._

_Your name is Oh Sehun._

_My name is Kim Jongin._

_I was the one you told you'd love him today._

_And that you'll love him tomorrow._

_Tomorrow._

_I bet you won't remember me or this letter tomorrow._

_Because you don't have a tomorrow, Oh Sehun, you only have today with your wonderful amnesia that makes your world stop where it shouldn't._

_I don't dare you to stick this to the post-it's on the wall and remember me every single day._

_Decide this by yourself, because I'm not taking you the decision if you want to remember a boy the hours were running from when you're a boy the hours haven been stuck with._

_Sincerely yours, Kim Jongin_

_9/17/2014._

Maybe time is trembling. Maybe it's bleeding. Maybe Jongin was bleeding time instead of blood. Sehun doesn't know it, because Sehun doesn't remember Jongin bleeding or smoking. Sehun would ask Jongin why he smoked every day and he still won't know the answer. But Sehun thought he had enough days stuck in time to ask this question and forget it.  


Maybe time is stopping. Maybe time is only a abstract description of a specified amount of life you're supposed to have. But Sehun knows by own experience that it doesn't matter if you have tons of time.  


It's nonetheless never enough.  


With trembling fingers, Sehun takes the letter and picks a particular special place for it on his wall.


End file.
